For the ones who came in late, a 5.1 Home theatre consists of a few key components.
- a AV receiver (which allows you to drive all inputs from your DTH, DVD Player, portable player to a common destination + does all the sound processing)
- 5 speakers (2 Front, a centre (for voice) and 2 rear (for surround)
- a sub-woofer (which brings the BOOM in your explosion scenes)
Vijay Sales
I spent roughly 2-3 weekends strafing stores + crawling the web.
The Yamaha receiver which costs around 12-13K INR in the US is available in India for nothing less than 22-23K. (Of course this excludes the 'grey market'.) Vijay Sales has some tie up with Yamaha India and they have exclusive deals like an entire 5.1 HTiB (Home theatre in a box) for 24-26K. So that's 5 speakers and a woofer for 2-3K? Don't worry if that doesn’t logically compute.. it just gets worse. So I figure this is a big amount, if something goes awry I'd need service. The VS salesperson calmly states "1 year warranty. If something goes wrong, you'd have to carry it yourself to their service centre in Bandra." Hmm.. what kind of warranty is that? So Vijay only Sells? Figures. Does the sign read VijaySalesAndSupport?! So I commute to another branch of the same chain in the same city. "Yes Sir, if you buy any HTiB from us, you'd get on-site support. Someone from Yamaha would come to your home to fix it." Hmmm.. Another day, back to Branch#1; I ask the angler (also known as the salesperson) to confirm with his manager.. and wonder of wonders! "Yes sir, it seems that we have on-site support. This is a special Diwali offer. That's why we're offering it." Riggghhht. So I place the order, pay the money, I am given a sealed box. A few days the demo-people from Yamaha make a house-call; "If there is some minor problem, we'll come by and fix it. If a capacitor or a xxx goes off, you'd have to bring the equipment to Bandra at your own risk". Nice! But believe it or not they're the best of the lot.
E-Zone Powai and Mulund
Now from my online research, I also deduce that there is heavy specialization in this domain. People who make the best receivers do not necessarily have the best speakers. So I need better speakers than the tiny cube shaped ones that come with the HTiB. Some more store-strafing, I notice a good deal at E-Zone, Powai. Jamo S 406 (5 speaker set) for 16K. Can I get a demo? "Sir it's not connected." Can you connect it? 30 mins later.. "Sir
Soon I find that E-Zone Mulund has it too.. negotiation for 20-30 mins.. cut to the chase.. ready to pay. The guy goes in and comes back.. "Sorry sir, it is a Diwali combo offer. You'd have to buy it along with a subwoofer for 25K. You can't only have the speakers". But you have different price tags on the two.. why don't you have one price-tag if I can't buy it individually? Why did we chat all this while? (shrugs) "That's the way it has been entered into our billing system." (Bewildered) Ok. "But sir, if you come back after Diwali, you could have it."
Croma Retail
Sir being a nitwit, goes to a Croma outlet (a friend recommended their range of products on display) and starts looking around. They have a plush looking demo room, stocked with some HTs. Sadly it seems the range is the only thing they have to offer. None of the sets on display work.. everything has some or the other thing wrong. I ask them so how am I supposed to buy anything from you? on faith??!! "Sir I'll set it up in 5 mins. Have a seat" (Does his own little 'fire round the mountain' item. 30 mins later...) "Sir the fravvle has aardwagled the froogle. It won't work today." HariniwasChowk we have a problem! Sir walks out. But Sir is a sucker for punishment. Maybe I walked in at a bad time.. this time I was in looking for a wireless-N router... lets see if they just suck at AV gear. Just for kicks, I query about an AV-demo. 30 mins later - Croma has failed another manned mission to planet-HT. Then I have to beg some anglers to tell me where the wireless routers live. (These anglers have fish biting all around.. you're not worthy of their time.) AnglerX one points roughly North-East "there." If you're not exactly reviewing Einstein's theory of relativity, can you show me exactly which one of those 10 dual-sided shelves? To my surprise, he obliges. I look for about 10 secs.. pick one box.. what is the warranty on this? the warranty? hello? (turns around) AnglerX has disappeared from plain sight. AnglerY is sitting down on the floor stacking boxes right beside me. I try him. 3-4 times. Either I just lost my voice or he is another scientist in disguise. Finally I offer a physical stimulus with the box in my hand. He responds.. thank God for Zoology (or Biology). "Sir, madam ko poonchna padega." pointing to a well-dressed Female angler higher up on the food-chain. Madam is busy. After 5 mins, Madam says 1 year and moves on with her life. I with all my IT-guy brains, go back and pick another box. What is the warranty on this one? Bad move. 15 mins later. I just want to get this and get out of Zombieland.
So I stand in queue, pay the bill. There's a guy in tie, who intercepts me walking out of the door. "Sir you can have a Tata Privilege card with your bill amount. You can get money off future purchases". I smell a rodent. Do I need to pay for this card? "No Sir." Sure? Alright.. sign me up. He then unloads form after form and in the expedient and competent manner that I have grown to identify by Smell, "Sir you have to sign here and here. I'll take care of the rest." He then asks for my license and bill for a self-attested photocopy. Strange... but okay. Then more forms.. I'm already sorry. Then in the middle I spot a strange form with a table with numbers in it. Insta-zoom! 1st year NIL. 2nd year onwards Rs.650. By then I had asked at-least twice of any hidden charges, which he had denied. I refused to sign anything more, told him to throw everything in the trash and walked out. My wife waiting outside sent me right back in to fetch the copies of the documents. I reluctantly walked in.. I mean what can they possibly do with 1 xerox and some half filled forms? Apparently they're a resourceful lot. I see the card-seller crouched over the desk. I move closer and see that he has a pen and the form that I refused to sign, has the beginnings of my signature. The photocopies that I signed are above. Forgery@CromaRetail! That was the straw that broke my back. Anger is always bad for your judgment. I tore up the forms in front of him and yelled at him. The cashiers stare non-chalantly… "de dena wapas documents." I am amazed.. this guy is forging a customer's signature to sell his paltry horse-crap "privilege" card and that's their reaction. The card-seller has broken into cold sweats. I realize I already tore the proofs.. Damn. I walk out cursing. Croma is definitely off the christmas list for life.
E-Zone Mulund delivers the KO
This is not over yet. It's after Diwali and I'm @ Nirmal Lifestyles for an errand. Walk into E-Zone Mulund again.. and of course, the clouds have cleared. They're willing to sell me some speakers now - they decree. I ask for permission to run some of my tunes off a portable storage device to a pen-drive. They might be doing their demos with special angler-CDs. AnglerX says reluctantly "Of course Sir. You can use a laptop over there." I walk to the laptops section and ask which one is their spare laptop. "Spare laptop? We don’t have any spare laptops" I drag my personal angler closer; he tries to negotiate a laptop for me. No way! “These are laptops for sale; without an antivirus. Store policy.” So a store that is selling truckloads of electronics, doesn't have a laptop for store-personnel. That sounds about right.
Finally I make another trip after going home to copy files to a USB drive. This time, I get to hear them out and I have decided. Walk to the payment counter.. Guy at the counter has another skirmish with the billing system. 30 mins later, barely coherent ; he's ready to bill me. I get a receipt. I am promised a "sealed box pack" in 5 days and someone from the speaker company to give me a demonstration at my house in 10. Sounds great.
5 days later. No sign of anything. I call up and when I finally get connected.. he says "Sir it will be delivered tomorrow" Make sure you call before you come over with the speakers. "Yes sir. They will call you before coming"
Next day is a Friday at work. I get a call from the delivery guy, who is mid-way with the goods. No point in asking him to come on Saturday.. I tell him I'll call him back after seeing if I can someone to collect it. I frantically make some calls to have a relative open the house and collect it. I try to call the delivery guy back.. and I hear an irate woman "Yeh pay-phone hai. Sau log phone karta hai idhar se. Kisko bulaoon main?" I render my heartfelt apologies and cut the call. So now there is no way to callback this runaway delivery missile. I thought everyone had mobiles.. especially delivery people.
That evening, I reach home and this, my readers, is E-Zone's definition of a "sealed box pack" for which I paid 15000 smackeroonies.
I am livid. I whip out my camera and snap it from all angles.. I would have not opened my door for this box.. but it was too late now. I place an emergency SMS to God.. I cautiously open the box and remove the speakers. Unwrap them out of their plastic dresses. Fortunately, the speakers look new (no way to be certain now). I check for scrapes or scratches ( indicative of certain unscrupulous AV dealers who stick their worn-out demo equipment to an unsuspecting customer.. although now unscrupulous seems to be superfluous.. ) Connect them up.. all of them sound ok. Heave a sigh of relief
The next day I try to call them up. Now it would seem a good assumption that people looking to sell their wares would give you phone numbers that a human at the other end would pick up. Wrong! I couldn’t for all my engineering expertise, place a successful call to Vijay Sales. I fared slightly better at E-Zone at 10% of the time. So I let loose a verbal volley… “Sir.. but it comes straight from our warehouse.” What difference does that make to me? Did I pay you less to avail of this special benefit? “No one has turned up to work yet. If you can give me your bill / identification no and your contact number, I’ll have the right person call you back” 2 weeks and counting.. no phone call. I think we may have extraterrestrial communication before E-Zone gets back to me.
I did the one thing that I know of.. Rant in online forums. Did a few of idiot-av-buyers anonymous sessions. I promised to not let this go down.. I’ll write to some papers… consumer forums.. I have rights! They can’t treat me like this. 2 weeks later. The daily grind has numbed me again..
Lessons learned
- Who has the time to run behind these people? They are playing to this advantage. They’ll redo their sign in a local language within a day so that non-paying strangers don’t come in and burn down their store. However paying customers are another story altogether.. No one is going to back these fools. This is a pattern that repeats itself with builders as well. They’re too big for you to take down alone.
- Big retail chains do not translate to service and no-worries. You’re on your own. Ethics & Customer Service comes right after unicorns and fairies for these retail chains. Imaginary. This is a complete contrast to even online-chains in the US (newegg/amazon comes to mind) that are exemplary in this regard. Given that good service should result in word-of-mouth publicity and repeat business ; it doesn’t make any sense but that’s the way it is.
- The only thing that will work for you is ‘Withhold money’ Till the money changes hands, you have “Sir this” “Sir that”. After that, they’ll not even pick up your call. "Cash on delivery" are the magic words to employ.